Wise Food Storage Review

Wise Company food storage marches to the beat of its own drums. There were a variety of differences we noticed as we conducted our research for our Wise Food Storage review. We look forward to sharing them with you. So read on to find out what we’ve uncovered.

Founded in 2008 from a messy split from partner Food For Health International, this Utah company decided to skip the traditional route of putting food storage in #10 cans and instead package it in metalized pouches instead. This idea has since grown in popularity within the preparedness community and Wise has been at the forefront of it.

Before we do get too deep, we’d like to point out that since Wise Company sells mainly food products they are naturally going to score low vs other more well-rounded preparedness companies we have reviewed. Nonetheless there’s a lot to talk about so let’s jump in!

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Normally when we review a company it means we have purchased from it directly. That isn’t the case with Wise Foods as we were able to buy various pouches at our local Cabela’s instead of being forced to buy a large pouch-filled buckets from their website. Their retail presence is spreading into other store fronts. Often you will find Wise Food products sitting side by side the industry leader of pouched freezed dried meals, Mountain House.

Buying at a variety of retail locations was a convenience many other brands can’t offer. We didn’t get to experience the buying process through their E-commerce website which but we did still have some customer service experiences to share in our Wise Food storage review.

On a few occasions we reached out to their customer service reps via phone and email to ask a variety of questions. Generally speaking they have been knowledgeable and quick to respond via email though we would like to see a live chat feature added to the site. Julie and I prefer the option for quick chat sessions opposed to calling in or emailing questions. [UPDATE: they now have Live Chat]

Our only gripe with their customer service was the unsatisfactory response we got over one of our biggest problems with Wise Food Storage. Advertising food kits by servings. Wise Food advertise’s their product by serving count as opposed to calories per day, a much more informative and worthwhile number. They had no logical reason for marketing their product that way. In our opinion it can be deceptive and should be changed. The end result is it makes people think they are getting a lot more food than they really are.

For example, their food storage calculator seen below tells you that a person only needs 2 to 3 servings of food per day. When you look at the nutrition panels you quickly recognize that they are on average 250 calories per serving. I don’t know about you, but I would like more than 500-750 calories a day to live on. You are going to want to supplement their buckets with other calories.

PRICING

When you compare Wise Food Company food storage pouches to other similar products such as Mountain House and Backpacker’s Pantry you will see that their food is priced very competitively. On average we found them to be about 15-20% cheaper than Mountain House. A Mountain House pouch that yields 2.5 cups (prepared) is on average $8.09 while the average Wise Food pouch is $6.99.

While their pricing is lower, our experience is that the Wise Food products are not as good as Mountain House meals. This of course subjective opinion. In the near future we plan to do a blind taste test to get more opinions on the matter or you can request a free sample from their website.

Lastly, it is important to look at shipping and other miscellaneous costs. They often have free shipping deals going on. Check out our Today’s Deal page or our Wise Company coupon page for the latest deals. If you are not shipping the product to the state of Utah you can also save on sales tax when placing an order online.

FOOD STORAGE

It didn’t take long when we started doing the research for our Wise Food Storage Review that we noticed Wise Foods is just selling the tip of the ice berg when it comes to food storage. Wise has the just-add-water meal pouch product line down pat but offer no other packaging options like most food storage companies. That means no #10 cans, 6 gallon buckets, nor the smaller pantry size can. As for food variety that is lacking as well. Wise Food Storage has only been carrying meats and fruits for a couple years, you are going to be hard pressed to find the hundreds of other traditional food storage options most other places carry but that might not be a bad thing if all you are looking for are entrees.

Wise Foods is a solid option for people that want just add water meals (and a few other items) but don’t want individual food components like baking soda, wheat, oats, ect . People that prefer the convenience of a pouch and don’t mind the reduced shelf life (more on that later) are going to definitely want to look between Wise Foods and the pricier yet tastier Mountain House brand.

A positive of purchasing all of your food storage in pouches is that you will 100% avoid BPA that is often found in the enamel interior coating of steel cans.

PRODUCT SELECTION

As we mentioned in the opener, Wise Foods has only carried just-add water meals for the majority of its existence. They are sorely lacking non-food survival gear so there really isn’t much more to say here. They are adding to the selection but at the moment have only about 35 non-food items.

PRODUCT QUALITY

Wise Food Storage makes their meals from a blend of dehydrated and freeze-dried components. They are sourced and packaged here in the good ol USA, a great thing compared to some companies going overseas to places like China for ingredients.

As for taste, of the 5 entrees we tried, we preferred the Mountain House equivalent more. In some cases they were not close, while a few were almost on par.

Creamy Pasta BeforeCreamy Pasta After

This doesn’t mean Wise’s foods should be avoided. Many people are ok with trading quality for getting more for their dollar, and that is where Wise Foods will be a compelling alternative for many.

A lot of people prescribe to the idea that they hope for the best and plan for the worse and will be lucky to have something in a time of need or another way to put like my dad would say “beggars can’t be choosers.”

Cheesy Lasagna AfterChili Mac After

While we are not raving fans of all of their emergency meals, we like that Wise Company offers free samples for people to test out the food before buying which is something most companies don’t do so you have to give them credit for giving customers the option to try before you buy.

Over the last 5 years we have tried several of the same Wise Company meals and have noticed the quality improving. The original recipes had a weird chemical aftertaste but that does not appear to be the case with the last 4 meals we tried from them in July of 2016. It would make sense that they would improve the product over time but we think they need to spend some more time on their Chili Mac. Our favorite was the Apple Cinnamon breakfast cereal.

WEBSITE

The Wise Foods’ website is very easy to navigate. It is helpful in getting most of the information someone needs to make a purchase. Simply hover over the various dark maroon menu buttons to expose a variety of sub-pages that will take you everywhere you need to go.

Product pages as the one seen below are helpful in that they have tabs of information like Nutritional Specs, breakdown of what comes in each bucket, and more. We wish the images of the food were actually their food (their lasagna doesn’t look like that) but we can’t harp on them too much for that as it is done almost everywhere in food marketing. Ever been to a fast food joint and compared the hamburger in front of you to the one you saw on TV?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Something Wise Company has improved upon greatly in the last year or two is in providing information and resourcefulness to its customers. In the past their blog would publish a new article once every blue moon but now they are posting articles weekly. The quality of the content has improved as well. Beofre the topics we often covered on a surface level with many details left out (reminded me of some of my college assignments) but their new staff has turned that around with far more credible information.

Some might wonder why we’d even mention this but to Julie and I we fill that if a company is truly focused on the customer they are not only going to provide products but also information to help them out. Preparedness is a lot more mental than most people realize so providing useful information to help those that are learning is a great thing in our book. Kudos to Wise for improving here.

OVERALL SCORE

As you can see Wise Food Storage has some big ground to gain if they want to be more than just a quick meal pouch company. That’s why they scored so poorly in the overall score for their review, but if you are in the market for a lower cost alternative to Mountain House pouch meals, give Wise Food Company a shot. They do a pretty good good at what they focus on.

[UPDATE: Our Wise Foods review has recently been updated to reflect current pricing and details that have changed. We have updated this review 8 times since our original review in 2012, with the most recent being August 2016.]

22 comments

We haven’t tried it but a lot of these quick qook meals would NOT work out well being cooked for a long period of time. Many of the ingredients are made to be ready fast and when prepared differently they can get soggy and or have a bad consistency.

Just wanted to confirm that I have cooked our meals at trade shows many times in a crock pot. I boil water in a jet boil, then add the water and food to the crock pot, cover and keep on low for 15 minutes.

Also, I completely understand some of complaints about some of the meals not tasting like Olive Garden. I wanted to let you know that we have reformulated many of our meals and have some gluten free offerings as well. Our new Gluten Free teriyaki and rice is really good. I wasn’t a huge fan before, but Ireally like this new meal.

Lastly, Jack let us know if we can take care of you on your next orders. The buckets you mentioned are shipping now. We learned our lesson on that one.

Late lunch, we opened up a wise pouch ,can of beans, and a tomato from the garden. We both thought it was delicious. My only issue is they are unnecessary deseptive in there portion size and calories. 60 servings bucket is supposed to be two serving per day for 30 days for 1 person. I guess you’re supposed to eat part and put it in the refrigerator then microwave each day. Not realistic in a “SURVIVAL” situation. Since there are 4 servings per pouch a15 pouches its 4 servings per day for 15 days good to know when planning on how much food you want tostockpile

I noticed that LPC Survival stopped selling Wise Food Buckets some years ago implying they were sub-par or something. I had already bought 4 buckets — at about half price with free shipping. I could not afford the “gourmet meals” of Mountain House at the time, and I still can’t.

I am genuinely surprised at some of the comments here. If you and your family are sitting in the burned out remains of your home in who knows what kind of weather, would it not be easier to just have a meal that only requires clean water (which you should have anyway) than a working stove and kitchenette?

If my family is eating and alive after a disaster, then how have I “lost money”? Is the food in the Wise Foods buckets poisonous after more than 10 years? Is it worse than spam? Is it dangerous to eat? I don’t know.

I never opened it or tried it because it was for an absolute emergency only. If we have something edible after a disaster that only requires water, I doubt we will be “critiquing” it while trying to stay alive. For those who are not middle class, Wise Foods offered something we could actually afford.

I just tried my free sample from wise foods, chili macraroni. First of all the measurement of water they reccomend to the sample was one cup , which produced a very soupy mixture.Secondly they suggested a 12 -15 minute rehydrate time which left the ingrediants still dehydrated.After 25 minutes of rehydration it was not fully hydrated,macaroni was still hard and chewy.Thirdly the beef tasted like cardboard, I couldnt even get past 4 bites it was so horrible. I normally buy mountain house and really enjoy the meals, this was NOTHING like mountain house. This was the worst experience of dehydrated food I ever had.

Ha! I just made this last week and was about to write my review and post my video. I agree this one was not good. In a disaster setting or camping I’d have no problem eating it but my mind wandered as I ate this one with a fully stocked fridge feet away from me lol.

I didn’t have trouble getting it to re-hydrate though. Boiled water in the microwave then put it in the pouch and within 12 minutes or so everything was ready to eat.

I ordered the dried fruit bucket back in November of 2015, I saw the commercial on r and thought I would call and order the fruit I received it , now just to let you known never did the tell me anything about a 90 day refund policy, nor did I receive any information on this policy when it arrived at my house. So here it is August 2016 and a few weeks back I tried the bananas and strawberries they are awful. So I called to see how I could return ( I only opened I pkg of each ) they were very rude and told me they would not refund the bucket, the told me to keep it or give it away or throw it away I told her word of mouth goes a long way thank you & goodbye.

One they were wrong for being rude. Never should a company be rude to a customer. Ever.

Two, they are in a tough spot with a customer wanting to return a product 10 months later (7 months after their return policy). Reason being is they don’t know how you stored the product. People could store them in a place with too much sun and too hot and then want their money back when it doesn’t taste good anymore. I’m not saying this is what happened with your particular order but it is one of the reasons why I could see a business be hesitant to refund something so far past their return window. Their 90 day return policy is about average in the industry. Some companies like the Ready Store have a 180 day period, others have around 3 months, and others a couple weeks.

I was looking at the Wise 30 day emergency long term storage food kit on their website. I noticed the total calories for the kit is only 19520. Based on a 2000 calorie a day diet, if the Food in the kit is all you have, your going to be skinny at the end of 30 days.

I just received my first bucket from wise today, I got the 120 entree bucket, I was a little worried because of some negative reviews but I had faith in the company, the shipping took 7 days on the dot it was supposed to be like 4 days later, very happy about that, the quality of how they sent it was perfect, now if u empty the bucket like I did its kinda a pain in the butt to re pack it so pay attention to how they did it, but all the packs were in good condition all 30 were there, there was a couple minor scratches on the packs from the edges of other packs, but no punctures the quality of the mylar packing is pretty durable, I decided to try the chili mac for a portion and taste test, its pretty good it needs pepper but bye itself its perfect so the portions, dont be fooled if they appear small in the pack because its super shrinked bye the freeze dry process, so u get plenty of food per serving, I could live off one pack for 4 days if necessary, everyone else in the house loves it my dog wont leave me alone she loves it so I am very impressed with the product, oh when I first opened the pack I smelled it I could smell a little nitrogen leaving the bag, but they do nitrogen flush a few times.to get residual oxygen out which is very smart, but right after that smell was gone I could smell the freshness of the food it smelled good in the bag, so if u want a cheaper high quality long lasting food choose wise, they are the only ones I found to get a free sample also without providing credit card info,

I bought a bucket from them, was supposed to get 10 percent off and free shipping with the promo code they sent me. Did not honor it or honor it when I called them about it.will not order anything again.

Wise Co. talks about using their food when there is no power. In their commercials, I see them serving piping hot food in a casserole dish. How do they expect you to cook them when there’s no power. It sounds like a hoax to me.

On Saturday 20 May 2017 I wanted to try the Wise 72Hr food offer. I called the number on the screen and got Cody. His attitude was less then friendly. I ask him some questions and he told me he would have to have my Credit Card Number (CCN) before he could answer any question. I ask him why and he said “that’s the way the system is set up”. I ask Cody if he would pay for something BEFORE knowing what you were going to get. Again his not so friendly attitude gave me the same excuse. I told him to forget that I called. I hung up and about 5 minutes later Cody called me back, without my permission. During this time he was willing to give me addition information. I then gave him my CCN and he huge up on me. I then called my CC bank and put a hold on my CC, thinking he might bill my CC. After putting my CC on hold I called the direct number for Wise. Unfortunately I didn’t get the guys name, I told him my story. He didn’t ask any questions or tried to help me, because he could care less. So Wise your food might be good but thank God there are others companys who offer the same type of food you do, because there is NO way I would ever want to do business with your company. I will make sure ever one who will listen to me will know what I just experianced with Wise food.

I like the thought of the meals ready to eat idea but the food needs some work I got a free sample of chili macaroni it tasted sweet to me I was thinking it would be spicy but it was sweet boy was I surprised but still doesn’t deter me of buying from wise food storage in the future

This will be my last purchase..I think the customer service stinks and they promise more than they can deliver. The last purchase was held up due to inspection even though they advertised in stock and ready for delivery. Today I have tried multiple times to get customer support and no answer.i believe they have a call center and those people are rude and not aware of what the company offers. It’s been 14 days on this order. Can’t wait to hear the excuse.i will use another company for my needs !

I placed my 3rd order from Wise and see some serious issues with their service.
The last order I called to request chicken only for the meat bundle and was up sold to buy 2 bundles. I specifically asked for chicken because my girlfriend does not eat beef. The guy Paul who took my order said he could not attach my order to my existing online account which is strange so he manually took my info and created a new account. Well Paul must be incompetent because I never received an email confirmation. Now almost 2 weeks later I still have nothing. It took 3 tries of contacting them before I got a response . They ignored my first email for a day. They could NOT send me a confirmation because they “could not access the information” and only could get me a tracking number. Before logging out they told me that I ordered beef when I ordered chicken. I called and got Paul again who when asking how are you I said “not good” and then rose his voice with me saying he was not going to listen to me conplain!
Incompetent, overpriced, terrible informationn systems and departments that do not speak to each other! The preparewise order I placed later that day came a week ago and it was a much better deal going by actual weight of food. I’ll never do business with this company again!

Wow that guy sounds like a jerk, probably won’t long before he is canned. That’s no way to talk to a customer.

Heads up though Joe I’m not sure going by weight of food is a good deciding factor. Dehydrated food has less shelf life, typically does not taste as good, and is cheaper to manufacturer than freeze dried food. I wouldn’t solely look at the weight of the packaging as the deciding factor. It can be one data point to your purchase decision but it shouldn’t be the only one. For examples a 1 lb pouch of freeze dried apples for $10 is a way better deal than a 1 lb bag of dehydrated apples for $5. Meals can be a little harder to check into as most meals these days have a blend of both but hopefully you get the idea.

This company is bad news. I ordered a “Emergency Freeze Dried Breakfast and Entree Bucket – 56 Servings ” on September 3rd, expecting a delivery within two weeks(as per their site). After the two weeks I sent an email to get an update, after a week, and no response, I called to get an update, and was told that the order would go out either that day or no later than the end of the week. After a few more emails, and three more phone calls, with a total of four delivery timetables, I still don’t have the order, or any idea when it will be shipped. They did of course bill me for the merchandise on the day I placed the order(Sept. 3rd). Although, on one of the phone calls, they did refund the shipping.